The other was Donald J. Waters of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, who, actually, is not among the 16 current members. I appreciated his courteous note to me and can understand his resignation some weeks ago, since, in his Mellon role, he’ll be able to be more detached on funding issues.

Just what kind of an example is this for other librarians, traditionally believers in openness?

Ironically, as an advocate of more female and minority members on the DPLA committee, LibraryCity.org played a major role in the three public librarians being awarded their committee memberships in the first place. The DPLA still has just one Latino (Luis Herrera) and one African-American (Dr. Hayden) among the 16 committee members, and other diversity issues persist, such as the absence of any K-12 educators or small-town public librarians on the committee. Before I and others complained, the DPLA lacked a single local public librarian even months after its creation last fall. While the DPLA says its workstream groups will offer a wide variety of backgrounds and views, they cannot substitute for various kinds of diversity on the board itself.

I see the secrecy and diversity issues as intertwined; open organizations tend to be more responsive to public needs, especially when committee or board members are individually accountable for their opinions and decisions. Just why did the DPLA committee keep me and others out of its June 13 meeting a few miles from me—even though I’d participated in the group’s March workshop and have been advocating a well-stocked national digital library system since the early 1990s in places ranging from the Washington Post op-ed page to the Chronicle of Higher Education? And isn’t it telling that everyone, save for Chair Palfrey and ex-member Waters, ignored my queries about governance? I’d given them the option of replying to just the first four questions if need be, and they could have kept their answers very short. See why we need both public and university e-library systems? Even with some local public librarians involved, the DPLA committee was still clinging to its secretive ways, and I’d hate to see them spread to the public library world (of course, if the academic library world can be made more open, I’ve got no problem with that).

Of still greater importance, consider that two of the DPLA members are Deanna Marcum of the Library of Congress (left photo) and Susan Hildreth of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (which among other things awards library-related grants). Behind our backs, the DPLA in effect is helping to shape national digital library policy, and in Carl Malamud’s shoes I’d be furious that the process wasn’t more transparent. Or does Harvard-hosting mean that his earlier beliefs needn’t apply, that your local library board can just turn itself over to Harvard and never, never have to worry again about nosy members of the public? The ideal solution would be both real-time and on-demand audio, and if Harvard Law School and Harvard University as a whole can initiate and meaningfully implement openness policies to cover similar situations beyond Berkman’s and the DPLA’s, assuming those policies don’t already exist, then so much the better.

Come on, DPLA. Do the right thing. Here’s one sign from the heavens that you should. Coincidentally, while writing this post, I received the meeting notice below from the Nate Benes, via the mailing list of the Steering Committee of the Data Portability Project—a refreshing contrast in this case to the DPLA committee on secrecy issues:

The phone number is 1-201-793-9022 and the Participant Access Code is 1719146.

The Skype number is: +9900827041719146

Thanks,
Nate

* * *

John Palfrey’s newest video report: Helpful but no substitute for meeting records.

I’d intended to post some friendly suggestions for Harvard and the DPLA at the macro level and along the way recognize the positives of the Beta Sprint program (60 submissions). Those thoughts are still coming—in the next week or so, maybe in a few days. But I decided that the secrecy issue merited attention first, given the questions asked last month.

Meanwhile here’s a reminder to myself to search the DPLA email archives and see if John Palfrey has yet released the minutes from the June 13 meeting as promised last month.

Video progress reports, like John’s latest, are very welcome but are no substitute for detailed written minutes on, and audio records of, specific meetings. Let’s hold those DPLA committee members accountable. If they refuse to be, then they shouldn’t be serving on the steering committee. This is a crucial time for the committee. The current vision, alas, isn’t as responsive as it could be to nonscholarly needs, the reason I favor tightly intertwined but separate public and academic systems, particularly with digital divide issues in mind.

Sorry, but I won’t buy the possible time or money excuse as a reason for closed meetings and for not at least releasing transcripts.

If Berkman is to be genuinely worthy of upbeat coverage by the New York Times and other major media, then maybe it needs to spend a little more time and money on DPLA governance. And, no, the email list and wiki and workstream groups don’t count in this respect. Email lists and the others can’t apply for grants or undertake other activities in which the actual DPLA committee may engage. Ideally John Palfrey can go on to say, unequivocally, that “Closed meetings should be rare” rather than simply saying that he favors a mix of open and closed.

Even an informal DPLA can set a good example for formal organizational successors.

Here’s one last twist of fate. Would you believe, Berkman also hosts a media law organization that, yes, among other topics, discusses open-meeting issues. I have no plans to attend the Citizen Media Law Project’s meetings but wonder if these gatherings—in-person or virtual—are open.

Huh? I can’t recall deleting any comments posted to LibraryCity.org—other than spam. Yes, we do have a filter. Did you submit anything that didn’t go through? If so, please try again and alert me via email.

David Rothman { Thanks, Todd. A few points: 1. Portals rich in metadata---not just full-fledged archives---can be useful. Of course, I wish the DPLA interface were better so... } – May 06, 1:04 PM

Todd { I'm confused by your call to support the DPLA with an endowment. If the DPLA is to become a real public library it needs to... } – May 06, 12:33 PM

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Robert Nagle { The fact that the low powered earlier Kindle 3 model could implement a reasonably functional version of text-to-speech suggests that the technological challenges of doing... } – Jan 03, 9:09 PM

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Jen { Sadly, I don't share your optimism about the ability of libraries to manage the security of their own applications. Libraries have good intentions when it... } – Oct 15, 12:12 PM

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Mike { Just go in settings, application and disable (if you cannot uninstall) the apps (like ubiinfo) that bugs you with ads. Avast antivirus for Android will tell you... } – May 16, 1:54 PM